Dragon's Bride
by Shiriko
Summary: The Wizarding World has been taken over by the Dark Lord. Draco is forced into a web of lies to save the girl he loves. DM/HG
1. Chapter One

Dragon's Bride  
  
Disclaimer: The characters in this fic are not mine. They belong to Time Warner and J.K. Rowling.  
  
AN: Draco is quite a bastard in this fic, so please, be prepared.  
  
I had began a day like any other. It had ended her life as it was.   
  
In the morning she had been Hermione Granger, Head Girl, smartest student in her year, Gryffindor, friends with the Boy-Who-Lived. And then the impossible happened. People... no Death Eaters started to apparate into the school. They appeared in the Great Hall, shouting killing curses at everyone who moved, teacher and students alike. The only ones they spared were the Slytherins. A green tie and you were safe. Hermione had hidden in the wardrobe of her dorm, between school robes and silk evening dresses for balls that would never come, when she heard a Death Eater shouting two Avada Kedavras at her dorm-mates, cursing herself for not doing anything, for losing her wand, for not knowing where Harry and Ron were.   
  
She hid a long time in the wardrobe, crying silently. The castle around her had become eerily silent when footsteps could be heard nearing the wardrobe. The doors were opened and down at her looked the smug face of Draco Malfoy.   
  
"Ah, Granger, you are a smart girl, aren't you? Hiding yourself in the wardrobe, smart girl..." he spoke in soothing tone like a grown-up would talk with a particularly petulant and difficult child, "don't worry, I found your wand, everything is going to be... Petrificus Totalus."  
  
As Hermione could no longer move a limb, Draco lifted her out the wardrobe, removed her head girl badge "Sorry, Hermione, but the badge has to go," and held his wand close to her hair. He spoke a few unintelligible words, then murmured: "This will work." He smiled at her, lied her on the floor and went over to the dead body of Lavender Brown. He kneeled next to her and spoke another charm. Lavender's hair turned from straight honey-blond into a bushy brown. Draco pinned the head girl badge on Lavender's Hogwarts robes, closed her eyes and spoke another spell, which caused blood and bruises to spread all over her face.  
  
He came back to Hermione and looked down on her, ink-stained fingers, a glamour charm giving her Lavender's hair, the missing head girl badge and smiled at his handiwork.   
  
"Listen to me, mudblood fool. Potter and Weasley are dead and so are their and your family. If other people find out that your are still alive, you will be hunted to the end of the world. I cannot let that happen. From now on you are Lavender Brown. Your parents are dead, you never associated with Potter and never, never try to tell someone the opposite, if you know what is good for you. - Imperio."  
  
Hermione's head seem to be clouded in cotton candy, vaguely she heard Draco lifting the body bind. Detached she looked on how he meticulously spoke an "Incendio" to all of her photographs and personal belongings - the picture of Ron, Harry and her together in third year, her parents, he books, her color-coded homework - her life went up in flames.  
  
***  
  
Draco knew that the world owed him a lot, not only he was the heir of one of the most prestigious and rich families in the Wizarding World, touted to be the heir of Voldemort if the bastard's quest for immortality didn't went as well as he hoped, no, he was also handsome and smart and knew which side to pick.  
  
He had worked hard on lifting the thousand-year-old anti-apparating charms on Hogwarts. Through him the Dark Lord had finally taken over the last hold of the light side. And what joy it had been to see finally his tormentor of many years falling down. Weasley and Potter had died without a problem, an Avada Kedavra by the Wormtail (To not risk a repeat of the tragic Halloween sixteen years ago.) and the Boy-Who-Lived became the Boy-Who-Died. Weasel hadn't even struggled at this point.  
  
All in all it was a very nice day for Draco Malfoy. There was only a tiny, little problem. Draco Malfoy had an unhealthy obsession. It had haunted him for a long time, maybe even since his first year. Hermione Granger, know-it-all, bucktoothed, bushy-haired mudblood. Muggle. She was not th prettiest girl in the school, she was not the nicest, sexiest girl either and even her magical talents were nothing but book knowledge. But still... when Draco had laid awake at night he had thought of her and her hair, at her large, brown eyes, at her developing body, her legs, her breasts, how she would look under those robes...  
  
He fantasized over removing her socks from her calves, her panties under her skirt, his hands under her bra, her kneeling next to him, dressed in nothing but her Gryffindor tie, looking up to him, kissing his thighs, he rarely needed more to come all over his sheets.   
  
He started to obsess over her, her nervous little habits, her voice when she knew the answer to a particular tricky question, he would memorize the curve of her breast just to be pleasantly surprised after the summer.  
  
And while his father introduced him to his Death Eater circle and he himself supplied the idea how to get into Hogwarts, he brooded how he could make his fantasies reality. He knew he got to have her, he had to possess her, fuck her, worship her body, make her scream in anguish and ecstasy or both. He had to kiss every inch of her body, had to make her his forever and ever and this is when Draco Malfoy came up with a plan. 


	2. Chapter Two

Dragon's Bride - Chapter Two  
  
Disclaimer: The characters in this fic are not mine. They belong to Time Warner and J.K. Rowling.  
  
He was Draco Malfoy; he was solely responsible for the downfall of Hogwarts and his name granted him respect. So when he came out of the Gryffindor tower with a blond, pliable girl, no one dared to look twice at him. He dragged the Imperio-ed girl into the Great Hall where Voldemort sat on Dumbledore's chair looking down happily at the carnage surrounding him.  
  
Draco fell down on his knees and said: "My Lord, I have a request that only you can grant me."  
  
Voldemort still amused by the dead faces of his foes, smiled and replied: "Speak and it shall be granted."  
  
Draco didn't tried to show it, but he felt victorious "Master, see this poor misled Gryffindor fool of a girl? She has rejected my affection on behalf of me being a Slytherin many times. Her name is Lavender Brown, her equally misled family is nearly as old and wealthy as mine and therefore her death would rather harm our side than aid it. I ask you, my Lord, to allow me to marry her in order to lift the Imperio curse to use a much older and effective magic and to be granted her family's riches."  
  
Somewhere in the background he heard a sputter from Francis Parkinson, father of the incredibly talented in carnal matters (if otherwise rather unattractive) Pansy Parkinson.  
  
The Dark Lord bestowed a smile on Draco and the girl he thought to be Lavender Brown. It was probably meant to be benevolent, but it only looked creepy and horrific like all of his smiles. Draco felt a bunch of tremors running through his bride-to-be. "So, young Master Malfoy has already picked the best of the bunch? And out of vengeance too. I am proud and grant your request under one condition," Draco held his breath. What would Voldemort want? His first-born? Malfoy Manor? "The house of Slytherin is the best in all the land, no one deserves better than a Slytherin. I want you to teach your wife this lesson thoroughly. Is that understood?"  
  
"Yes, sire."  
  
"Good. Now let's move on. I want Hogwarts burning down to the ground. Save nothing but the rare tomes in the library. I will built my own fortress on its ground and it will prevail for thousands of years to come."  
  
Draco latched on to the arm of Hermione and dragged her to the next fireplace. "Malfoy Manor," he shouted and threw Floo powder into the flames. Hermione's world turned back.  
  
***  
  
She woke up in a soft bed hours later. The sheets were silky and there was a pot of tea next to her bed. She had finished her third cup when she realized that her head no longer felt like it was clouded in cotton candy. Instead everything was clear and she remembered. A creepy smile, Draco's request, her new identity... she grabbed a strand of her hair and was shocked to see that it were indeed Lavender's honey-blond locks instead of her own brunette mane. Her mind drifted further to her family and her friends all dead and she started to cry in dry heaving sobs like her body didn't had enough fluids to sustain her tears. She didn't know how long sh cried only that suddenly she heard the crash of a tea pot broken and the squeaky voice of a house-elf.  
  
She looked up, but the house-elf had already disappeared. She went over to the broken tea pot and picked up a few pointy shards. She hid most of them all over the room and slipped the last one into the sleeve of her nightgown. Just in this moment a familiar smug Death Eater came through the door.  
  
"Hello... Lavender," Draco said with some relish, "up already? Impatient for our wedding?" He came closer "For our wedding night?" A hand crept up her arm.   
  
"Don't call me that." Hermione demanded, "that's not my name."  
  
"What should I call you instead? Miss Brown? Or sweetheart? Darling? Lover?" His hand had sneaked its way down her arm and held her hand. He lifted her palm towards his face and blew a kiss on it. "Maybe I should put you under the Imperio again, because obviously you don't know what is good for you."  
  
He let her hand go looking suddenly enraged: "Do you really want to reveal your real identity to everyone? Do want to experience the Crucio? Do you?" His face went so close to hers that their noses nearly touched. "Do you want to die, Hermione?" he whispered.   
  
And then he ripped off the sleeve of her nightgown. The shard fell to the floor. "Then stop trying to kill me. --- Snipsy!" A house-elf appeared. "Get rid off the mess here. And you should better try to get rid of the last tiny shard in this room if you value your life."  
  
Snipsy went to work and had soon found all of Hermione's hiding places. Another elf came and got rid off the unbroken tea pot and everything else easily broken and sharp. Draco watched with an amused glint in his eye how Hermione's defiant stance turned into slumped shoulder and downcast eyes when the elves were gone. "Miss Brown, there are a bunch of books on etiquette in the cupboard. I expect you to know their content by the heart tomorrow. Goodbye." He closed the door behind him, waited a few moments and then heard her sobbing. He smiled. 


	3. Chapter Three

Dragon's Bride - Chapter Three  
  
Disclaimer: The characters in this fic are not mine. They belong to Time Warner and J.K. Rowling.  
  
Whoever said lawyers are evil, obviously misunderstood the concept of a lawyer. Mr Cavendish, the Brown family lawyer, was by no means evil. If the light side had won, he would have the exact same thing he did right now - his job.  
  
"...and there is also also a partial ownership of the Bertie Bott company. To make it short your bride is a very wealthy woman now."  
  
No, Mr Cavendish wasn't evil. He just read Draco Malfoy the list of things the fake Lavender Brown now owned. It had nothing to do with evil. Nothing to do with the amount of killing the younger Malfoy had taken part in, nothing to do with the fact that Miss Brown was probably a very unwilling bride. Nothing to do that recounting her wealth would damn her to a very unhappy life, nothing at all. Mr Cavendish was just being what he was - a lawyer. But even Mr Cavendish felt a tremor of guilt when he looked into Draco's gleeful face. He closed his files and asked "If there aren't any more question, I beg you to excuse me now." The Malfoy heir nodded and watched the man disappear through the door, hurriedly like there were thousand of devils on his heels.  
  
Draco congratulated himself on his own genius. Not only he had saved Hermione from a certain and painful death, he was also now in the possession of the largest fortune of the Wizarding World. His plan had worked out beautifully. He would have Hermione in his bed forever and power and money like no Wizard had before him. He smiled when he thought about the previous day, about her creamy soft flesh of her arm and her shocked face when he ripped of her nightgown's sleeve. If she would have protested if he had ripped more than just the sleeve? He thought about her breasts exposed, her legs in their full length, her... 'Patience,' he chastised himself, "just a little bit more patience and she is all mine."  
  
***  
  
Hermione hadn't read the etiquette books, she hadn't eaten either, all she had done since Draco had walked out of her room was crying until she fell asleep.  
  
She was woken up by a rather tall, aristocratic-looking woman shaking her. "Get up, we have much to do."  
  
"Who... where...?"   
  
"My name is Narcissa Malfoy, I am Draco's mother and while the torn nightdress look is becoming, it is by no means an appropriate wedding dress." She threw a bunch of clothes on Hermione's bed. "I expect you to be showered and dressed in fifteen minutes sharp." Her tone left no doubt that whatever would happen to Hermione if she wasn't out of the bathroom within the time limit, it wouldn't be pleasant.  
  
Fourteen and a half minutes later a very subdued ex-head girl followed Narcissa Malfoy through a dark hall. Hermione guessed that this had to be Malfoy Manor just from looking at all the arrogant, blond wizards and witches whose portraits graced the walls. She entered a sunlight-filled study full of Louis Quinze furniture, which gave the study a feminine look. There were already a seamstress and vast amounts of white silks and velvets waiting to be fitted for the Malfoy bride.  
  
Obviously Narcissa Malfoy had already chosen how the dress should look and all the seamstress needed was her measurements. "Lavender Brown?" the seamstress asked, when Narcissa had gone to the other side of the room to take a closer look at an especially expensive Chinese silk. "Strange... I remember you were taller," the seamstress said.  
  
Hermione stared at her in shock: "How?... What do you want?"  
  
"Don't worry, girl," replied the woman, "My son... he died a few days ago." She looked down. "If..." she started anew: "If he could have... then... yes." She went down on her knees and started to look for a pin, she hadn't lost. "Don't worry, girl. I won't say anything. And..." she gave up her search for the pin, "Anyone who'll ever ask me... you are Lavender Brown."  
  
Narcissa had grown bored of the Chinese silk and came back to seamstress to talk about the rather elaborate embroideries on Hermione's wedding dress. "Dragons. I want dragons across the back and the hem of the skirt. And maybe a snake pattern on the sleeves. Wouldn't that be sweet, dear?" she asked Hermione not waiting for an answer. The question was purely rhetorical and they both knew it. Hermione would get exactly the wedding dress Narcissa wanted, her own desires notwithstanding.  
  
***  
  
After a lunch that was more of an unsuccessful exercise in small-talk and an afternoon full of choosing even more robes for the Malfoy bride - Hermione being needled and pinned and Narcissa doing the actual choosing, a very pleased Narcissa led Hermione back to her room, where she went back to hiding under the covers and crying herself to sleep.  
  
She dreamed of being back at Hogwarts, of being in the Great Hall, which was empty. The enchanted ceiling showed a grey sky and from the open doors and windows an icy wind went through the hall. And suddenly Hogwarts was gone and Hermione stood all alone on a field full of flowers. And then she woke up to look directly into a pair of grey eyes. 


	4. Chapter Four

Dragon's Bride - Chapter Four  
  
Disclaimer: The characters in this fic are not mine. They belong to Time Warner and J.K. Rowling.  
  
"Malfoy, what are you doing in my bed?"  
  
Hermione had jumped out of the bed, like she had found a poisonous snake in it, which all things considered was quite close to the truth.  
  
Said Malfoy continued to recline on the bed in a relaxed pose, head propped up on his right hand, the eternal smug look in place. "Darling," he said in a sugary sweet voice Hermione hated, "you should get used to it. This is the face you are going to wake up for the rest of your life." And upon seeing Hermione apparent horror when she realized that 'the rest of her life' wasn't an empty threat, he added: "I am sure you cannot wait for the rest of your life to begin."  
  
Draco stood up and closed in on Hermione: "I have wonderful news for you then. I have spoken with the Dark Lord and he agreed that there is no reason to wait for the unification of the illustrious house of Malfoy with the less illustrious, yet ridiculously wealthy house of Brown." He was whispering in Hermione's ear now, her eyes were burning with unshed tears as she tried not to shake with fear and disgust to feel Draco Malfoy -- the Draco Malfoy, Amazing Bouncing Ferret, Death Eater and the slimiest creature to ever crawl out of the Slytherin dungeons -- breathing on her cheek. "Hermione," he added, still whispering, nearly tasting her skin, "in three days time, nothing will ever be able to harm you. As the wife of Draco Malfoy, conqueror of Hogwarts you'll be protected and safe."  
  
"Three days?" Hermione asked incredulously. "You mean the wedding is in three days?"  
  
Draco took a step back and smiled at her the same indulgent way one might smile at a particularly obnoxious, cute child: "That's what I said, didn't I?"  
  
'Breathe, girl, breathe,' thought Hermione to herself, 'pull yourself together, you are stronger than this.'  
  
With renewed vigor she looked Draco directly into the eyes and said: "No. That's not what you said. You made a few vague promises about my safety and continued to brag about your brave... wait, no perfidious deed that was probably to manipulate the wardens of Hogwarts."  
  
Draco still smiled his superior, smug smile: "That's exactly why I want you to be the mother of my children." Hermione's eyes went wide open in shock. "No one else would have guessed from so little information how Hogwarts was taken. You however..." He smiled even more indulgently and in a (what Hermione thought was) a disturbingly dreamily manner; but just when Hermione found her voice back to tell him what exactly she thought of ever having to bear Malfoy children, he stopped smiling and his face became dark and threatening.  
  
"However I do not want my fiancee to use this kind of tone with me, neither now nor after we married. That means *ever*, dear. If I ever find you replying to me in such fashion again, you'll be punished."  
  
Hermione, not being sorted into Gryffindor for nothing, refused to be intimidated by vague threats of punishment, said: "Oh what are you going to do? No pudding? Refuse to give me Floo Powder to let me talk to my friends? The Cruciatus curse?" She laughed hollowly. "You can't punish me, Draco Malfoy. You cannot threaten me anymore. I've lost already everything I loved, I do not fear death or pain or hunger. Nothing you could possibly dish out, can hurt me."  
  
Draco lost his cool facade for a moment. He knew, she was right. In this very moment, there weren't many things he could successfully threaten her with. But a Malfoy is never going to be intimidated by the prospect of not finding a suitable punishment. Dishing out suitable and unsuitable (for the victim at least) punishments is in their blood and when Draco looked at proudly defiant face of the Gryffindor mudblood, he knew immediately the right one.  
  
"Undress!"  
  
Hermione did a double-take. "Un... undress?"  
  
"Are you deaf? Or have you forgotten how to use your nose. You smell ripe. Have you slept in those clothes?" Draco's tone was getting mean. "Surely you have slept in those clothes. So are the rumors about your..." he hesitated for a moment and continued in a quieter tone," ...kind true then? Do you all sleep in pigsties and wash only once a year?"  
  
Hermione was enraged: "You nasty, little ferret! How dare you to speak like this about my family and kind. You know what? Even if those rumors were true, *my* kind at least has some morals. They wouldn't kill hundreds of children just to invade a stupid, old castle."  
  
Draco smiled sardonically: "Wouldn't they? You are underestimating your kind here. They have and did and they still would and they did it first. We only copied them."  
  
His muggleborn fiancee was flustered, for once she didn't know what to say. "But..." she started.  
  
"Undress, sweetheart," Draco continued in the saccharine tone Hermione had quickly learned to despise. "You still haven't started. Or should I help with those buttons?"  
  
The ex-head girl considered her options. Running wasn't one, doing what he proposed wasn't either. That left only an outright refusal. "No. I won't do it."  
  
"So you refuse," he asked. Hermione nodded. "You really want to risk my wrath? Aren't you afraid?"  
  
"Your wrath," she laughed bitterly, "what's to fear about it?"  
  
Draco wasted no time to show her what exactly was there to fear. He whipped out his wand and said: "Petrificus Totalus."  
  
Hermione froze, only her eyes could still move, and with all their might they accused Draco of cheating in this battle of wits and threats. But Draco didn't looked to long into her eyes, he started slowly and methodically to un-button her robes. He then proceeded to take off the tunic she wore under the robes, when he reached for the hooks of her bra, Hermione's eyes had turned from being accusatory into downright panic. By the time he pulled her panties down her legs, they had turned into an expression of mortification. Never in her life before Hermione had felt so exposed.  
  
Her tormentor however hadn't even batted an eyelash about seeing her in the nude. He had treated her like a window-dresser would have treated a mannequin. His hands and eyes didn't linger, he treated her like a duty and not a human being, or a desirable woman. When he was done with her shoes and socks, he shoved the utterly humiliated Hermione into the bathroom with nearly the same words his mother had used on her earlier. "I expect you to be showered in fifteen minutes." Only he didn't wasted time on vague threats. "Or I'll help you showering." 


	5. Chapter Five

Dragon's Bride - Chapter Five  
  
Disclaimer: The characters in this fic are not mine. They belong to Time Warner and J.K. Rowling.  
  
Draco Malfoy was in pain. In a lot of pain. He just had undressed the girl he badly wanted for years and he hadn't done anything about it. His hands had touched the soft curves of her breasts just inches away from her nipples and while his dick had felt like it was going to explode any second, he had kept his face impassive. This was a game. The most important game of his life. If he had touched, grabbed, sucked, bitten and taken her body like he wanted to, he would have shown weakness. Hermione would have known that the next time all she had to do was getting undressed and he would be in her hands. And there was still the matter of the little post-wedding ritual... But there was a gigantic difference between knowing you should better not do something and not doing something, especially since the 'something' was the gorgeous Hermione Granger. Naked. Helpless. At his mercy.   
  
"Damn." he cursed quietly. Just when he thought his trousers couldn't feel any tighter. He willed himself to think about something else, Snape in underwear, the boring speech Cornelius Fudge had held on his father's fortieth birthday, a cold shower, showering, Hermione showering... "Damn, damn, god-forsaken damn!" He had to go use the only alternative left to walking into that bathroom and taking Hermione against the wet shower wall -- putting Miss Palm and her five daughters to good use.  
  
***  
  
A very subdued Hermione, clad in only in towel, came out of the bathroom, encountering a calm and collected Draco. "Have you seen any clothes I could wear, Malfoy?" she asked.  
  
"Over there."  
  
Hermione grabbed the bundle of clothes and went back into the bathroom. Three minutes an emerald green velvet robe, embroidered with a pattern of snakes, came into Draco's view.  
  
"Is that your idea of a joke?" Hermione asked.  
  
Draco was confused and looked up into the irate face of his fiancee: "What are you talking about?"  
  
Hermione had always been a sensible girl, but this was just too much. "Those robes! All they are obviously missing is a Slytherin scarf. Don't you understand what it means to me wearing those robes?" she asked Draco with only a hint of despair.  
  
He got up from armchair he had been sitting on, his trademark smirk missing, his facial expression unreadable. "I do, but you must understand something as well," he said threateningly, "Slytherin green and snakes are very, very fashionable right now." His voice dropped and suddenly sounded very quiet and dark: "Very much in fashion. Gryffindor girls should learn to wear those colors with pride, like they have worn them all their life, if they don't want to stick out. And in these times even... no, especially, my bride shouldn't stick out." His index finger traced the velvet-covered valley between her breasts, when he added very quietly: "We can't afford risking anyone looking too close at you, can we? I want to marry you alive and breathing."  
  
"Do you?" Hermione asked scathingly taking a step back and therefore removing his hand from her body, "Really? Why? What do you want, Malfoy? Come on, you are not in this for my good looks or my good grades. So why do you bother with this farce?"  
  
Draco's face grew even darker. "I want you. And I always get what I want, the way I want it." he said without showing any emotions.  
  
Hermione laughed disbelievingly: "Marriage? Children? Isn't that a little bit much? Do you expect me to believe that you would want to sully your pure blood with mine?"  
  
Draco's expression didn't change. "Yes." he said.  
  
"Dream on, Malfoy. I won't marry you. And you can't make me." Hermione smiled with silent triumph: "Don't even try to threaten me with the Imperio, marriages made under duress are null and void in Wizarding World and you surely don't want that." she said mimicking Draco's tone.  
  
Draco grabbed her left arm hard. "Come with me," he said.   
  
"What...?" was all Hermione could utter before Draco dragged her out of the door, through several corridors, down, down into the dungeons. By the time they had reached their destination, a closed cell door, Hermione was shaking with fear. She had recalled every torture that any Wizarding history book had ever mentioned, wondering what which she could expect behind the door and how long she would be able to withstand the pain until she agreed to marry Malfoy.  
  
But nothing could have her prepared for the sight that greeted her when Draco used a spell that rendered the door invisible. In the cell on dirty cots sat her fellow students and muggleborns Dean Thomas, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Dennis Creevey. They all still wore their Hogwarts robes, only the robes were torn and dirty with stained blood.  
  
Hermione recoiled, her eyes filled themselves with tears, "How... what?" she whispered.  
  
"Take a closer look, Hermione, " Draco said calmly, "they cannot see you. These are the last surviving muggleborn Hogwarts students. I cannot tell you what happened to them before they were brought in here, but I don't think it was too pleasant."  
  
He shoved Hermione into the direction of the cell. "Look at them. This is the best what could have happened to you. And you know what? It wouldn't have happened to you. You'd be dead by now. Those," he forced her head to look at the prisoners, "will live as slaves for the rest of their lives."  
  
"Sla... slaves?" asked Hermione incredulously.  
  
"Yes, slaves. The Dark Lord promised to re-invent the Wizarding World and these three are only the start." He turned Hermione around and looked her deep in the eyes. "They are promised to be given to Avery. Avery likes his playthings to be young." He paused and showed the hint of a smile. "Not that his playthings tend to survive his games long enough to grow any older."  
  
Hermione's eyes widened in horror. Draco continued: "I am sure I could demand them as wedding presents though. But how could I do that without a wedding taking place?"  
  
"You... you bastard. This... this is..." Hermione stuttered.   
  
Draco was unfazed. "The choice is yours - they'll either live with us, properly obliviated so that they neither will recognize you nor rebel against their fate, or they will die a long, painful death." His smile widened. "So what do you choose?"  
  
_________________  
  
Thanks to all of my reviewers: Erin, candygoddess, Princess-Anastaja, Jessi, Befuzzled and echo destynee. 


	6. Chapter Six

Dragon's Bride - Chapter Six  
  
Disclaimer: The characters in this fic are not mine. They belong to Time Warner and J.K. Rowling.  
  
Author's Note: Hermione is not Lavender. Draco just wanted to disguise the fact that Hermione is still alive, therefore covering her most distinctive physical attribute - her bushy hair - with a glamour charm and while trying to make the dead Lavender look like Hermione. The only thing that looks different is Hermione's hair and I think I am not giving too much away when I say that even that will change back in the future.  
  
"This is blackmail," Hermione said accusingly after the two of them had left the dungeons.  
  
"Of course not," replied Draco coolly, " I'm just stating the truth, darling. As much I'd love to save my fellow students, I have no other way to save them as to demand them as gifts for such outstanding events as the birth of an heir or a wedding. Therefore I have no other choice but to marry the first willing girl on short notice," he said stretching the word 'willing' slightly. "Do you understand me?" He added.  
  
Hermione understood. The difference between willing and blackmailed was enormous in the Wizarding World. After the infamous Heiress of Ravenclaw House wedding, weddings were literally charmed. If a bride (or bridegroom) were forced into the marriage by anything else but parental power, those charms would prevent her or him from saying the vows.  
  
"I am willing, I am willing" she whispered when they reached the door to her room; a mantra repeated silently more for her own than Draco's benefit.  
  
"Good," he said. He opened the door to let and closed the door behind them when they were inside. A house-elf must have been in the room as the bed was made and in the fireplace flames were crackling. Draco stood close to Hermione, too close for comfort. To her he looked incredibly tall -- 'When did he grow that tall?' she asked herself absentmindedly -- an imposing, threatening figure. A boy, still her own age and yet older, redefined... powerful, she realized, was the word she had been looking for to describe him. Power, magical and mundane crackled around him, seemed to oozes out of every invisible pore of his too perfect skin, his too well-groomed hair, even his too expensive, black robes reeked of it.  
  
Draco reached inside a pocket of his robes and drew out a ring. Hermione looked at it, like he just presented her with a mummified canary; disgust, morbid curiosity, disbelief and wonder washed over her in one confusing wave of emotions.   
  
"What is this, Malfoy?" she asked.  
  
He took a step closer. "First of all and most importantly, darling, it is Draco or 'love'." Hermione snorted un-ladylike. Draco continued undisturbed: "Second this is the ring all Malfoy brides wear until their sons want to marry. My mother has worn it until this very day and I expect you to cherish it."  
  
He took Hermione's right hand and put the ring -- a simple gold band with letters, Hermione couldn't decipher, on the inside -- on her ring finger. It fit perfectly; like it was made for her. 'It's probably enchanted,' Hermione thought and made a mental note to take it off as soon as Draco had left the room.  
  
"Now, beloved, I have to go and leave you to your own devices. I am sure, mother will prod you some more with wedding details." He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed the ring. The kiss gave Hermione a feeling like tiny little pinpricks were wandering from her finger, up her arm, all over her body.   
  
She snatched her hand out of his grasp and took a step back. "Don't touch me, Malfoy."  
  
Draco's expression changed from the serene smile of a devoted fiancee to a nasty grin without missing a beat. He closed in on Hermione, while she retreated against a wall. "What did I tell you just five seconds ago?" His right hand gripped her jaw harshly.  
  
"To call you Draco." Hermione said fearfully.  
  
"So you remembered? Why," and his eyes searched hers when he said this, "why didn't you used it then?"  
  
Hermione didn't know what to say, his hand hurt her and he still wore that nasty smile that promised pain and humiliation. Yet she forced herself to say: "Habit."  
  
Draco relented. He took his hand of her face and with the "devoted fiancee" smile firmly in place, he kissed her left cheek lightly. "See you later then, beloved," he said as he disappeared through the door.  
  
Catching her breath and willing her heart not to beat too fast, Hermione tried to pull the Malfoy ring off her finger. It didn't budge.  
  
***  
  
A day had gone by with more visits from the seamstress, a thorough lecture in polite conversation, a shallow one on contemporary wizarding politics -- Voldemort good, muggleborns bad -- and several unsuccessful attempts to remove the Malfoy ring. In a desperate attempt to distract herself from the rather troublesome situation, Hermione had picked up the only books she could find in her room. Sadly the books she found, consisted only of "Tact, Polite Behaviour and Five-hundred Other Ways to Avoid Getting Hexed" and "The Malfoy Family - Surviving and Living In Style."  
  
The latter proved to be a rather curious find. It included the long and rarely, if ever, noble history of the Malfoy family, several rules every Malfoy religiously had to obey and not one tiny hint how to remove that blasted ring.  
  
Ironically enough most rules were so odd, that by rule number fifty-four Hermione was in stitches. And because that wasn't enough irony in itself, her fiancee chose just that moment to pay her a visit.  
  
"What so amusing?" Draco asked, surprised beyond measure at his bride's merriment.  
  
"'Never wear orange on a Friday, in public, on a Quidditch field or in the bedroom.'" Hermione recited. "Who made those rules? And has anyone in your family ever been a Chudley Cannons supporter? Well, publicly, on a Friday, on a Quidditch field or..." she giggled, "in the bedroom?"  
  
Draco was taken aback. He had expected death threats, stolen kitchen knives, a crying fit, catatonia... everything but Hermione ridiculing and laughing over his family. He didn't know what to say. "I... uhm... well, I don't think anyone in my family has ever supported any other team than the Falmouth Falcons."  
  
Hermione seemed to find this even funnier than the 'Orange' rule. "The Falmouth Falcons? The Falmouth Let-us-win-but-if-we-cannot-win-let-us-break-a-few-heads Falcons? The most violent team in the entire history of the British Quidditch League according to Kennilworth Whisp and his Quidditch Through the Ages? As the Malfoy Quidditch team of choice... well, no-choice, really. Why am I not surprised at all?" she laughed.  
  
"We go for the best and the Falcons are the best," Draco tried to defend his family's team.  
  
Hermione knew better and promptly contradicted him: "Actually the Falmouth Falcons aren't the best team in the British League. The Montrose Magpies are the best team in the whole league, Draco, every child knows that."  
  
Draco could have said a lot of things at this point; he could have expressed his astonishment that a muggleborn knew so much about Quidditch even if it was just from some books; he could have made a huge fuss over the fact that the Falcons had been the consistently best team in the League; he might have taken offense that Hermione so openly laughed about his family's traditions, but he did neither of those things. His mind repeated her last sentence over and over again - 'Draco, every child knows that... Draco, every child... Draco, Draco, Draco.' He was disturbed how much of an impression her happy tone and her voice saying his name with friendliness instead of the usual contempt and fear had made on him, how much he wanted to hear it again, so confused as he was, he stayed silent.  
  
Hermione felt a similar confusion and while she wrecked her brain what she might have said to turn a conversation about Quidditch into stony silence, her temporary elation evaporated. Back were her worries, her grief and the dreary future and the role the man in front of her had played in all of this. Her smile vanished and she went back to reading the book, only this time the rule to wear black on Friday was more unsettling than amusing.  
  
Draco, still reeling how much a little, happy 'Draco' from his bride's mouth had muddled his emotions, barely noticed her distress. He said goodbye, leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, without even registering that tears had started to pool in Hermione's eyes.  
  
Had he taken dinner with her and his mother that night, he might have seen that the cheek, he had kissed her on, was scrubbed nearly raw.  
  
___________________  
  
Thanks to my reviewers: Alas Ear Wax (Belle), lilp, TearsofDespair,swimcutie, Lady Malfoy, regina-terrae, Samhain,AuroraDancer1813 


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